Its a know policy with them. I had this happen with one of my gift cards last Christmas, upon asking a co-worker who moonlights at BestBuy he confirmed to me that they are required to try anything to not get you to use your gift card if they can, even in store. He has even seen checkout people say that your giftcard is invalid when infact its fine.

Its not a BestBuy thing though, a lot of stores wont let you use gift cards online but will let you use them in store, which really screws people who get gift cards for stores no where near them. I know EB for a long time (maybe still even now, not sure) would NOT let you use EB or Gamestop giftcards on their site saying that because of the merger they could only honor the cards in store for some BS data transfer reason. The truth was, they didnt want you buying things online using the gift cards and used that as a excuse because you could get better deals online than in a brick store.

Wouldn't surprise me from a company whose business model includes/ed making money off of rejected or missed rebates. Gift cards are money already spent.

I am not an accountant, but I thought that gift cards counted as a liability, not a sale, until they were redeemed. In the week after Christmas you see lots of ads encouraging people to redeem their gift cards so the store can count it as a sale for that year. So it wouldn't make any sense for Best Buy to discourage gift card use.

The only explanation I could see for Ethan's problem is that Best Buy wouldn't want to ship an order on a gift card because there are no security precautions built into the gift card the way there are with a credit card. Obviously, the CSR could override this at their discretion.

I don't think Best Buy is really at fault here. This time.

"Wow, a gift card, as a gift, it's just as warm as money, but less flexible. Thank you for forcing me to shop at Best Buy."

It's like money but worse: you (or someone else) already has given the cash to the store. You're holding a piece of plastic worth as much as a private corporation is willing to trade for - and is worth nothing to the rest of the world. And with any restriction they set on. Like expiration, or valid with only certain items. Or only valid on Fridays. Not online. Excludes New Jersey. Must be member of a given political party...

Would it be surprising if I did recomment not to use gift cards at all?

Due to these problems with store gift cards, this is why I never purchase store-locked gift cards. If I'm planning to give a gift card, I will purchase an Amex gift card or some more universal card that can be used at more stores than just one. The problem with giving cash is that it's so impersonal. A gift card just doesn't seem quite as impersonal as giving cash.

I can't tell if this situation was Best Buy trying to get more cash out of you or if the rep was just clueless about gift cards. Seems that they hire these people and give them about 3 days training before unleashing them on the public. So, I'd tend to believe lack of knowledge rather than trying to pull a fast one. Although, anything's possible.

(sorry if posted twice, the first time the site did something wierd)

Due to these problems with store gift cards, this is why I never purchase store-locked gift cards. If I'm planning to give a gift card, I will purchase an Amex gift card or some more universal card that can be used at more stores than just one. The problem with giving cash is that it's so impersonal. A gift card just doesn't seem quite as impersonal as giving cash.

I can't tell if this situation was Best Buy trying to get more cash out of you or if the rep was just clueless about gift cards. Seems that they hire these people and give them about 3 days training before unleashing them on the public. So, I'd tend to believe lack of knowledge rather than trying to pull a fast one. Although, anything's possible.

Hardcle, I'd have to agree with you. Work for them for several (more then 4) years, and never once saw anyone discourage the use to gift cards in the store.

For online purchases, I'd have to agree with you again.

The one thing that has been overlooked is maybe he just got a shitty CSR on the phone to talk to. That does happen from time to time, and there were times when I had to deal with the same people at 888-Best-Buy that any "normal" customer would have to deal with.

It's like money but worse

I never got the whole gift card thing. Even if it were just like cash, why not just give them the cash? Unless there's some security where it can be replaced if lost or a discount/special associated with it, I fail to see the point (especially for small dollar amounts).

Personally, I like gift cards because if I get cash I end up spending it on gas or diapers or groceries. While that's nice and practical, a gift card allows me to splurge a little, guilt free.

Crate and Barrel's gift cards are "secured" if you register them on the C&B site, meaning if they're lost or stolen you still have access to the money on them. People like giving gift cards because it looks like you put some thought into the item, and I think they work well in specific circumstances, like as housewarming gifts. If I want you to use my money to buy something for your home, I'm going to give you a gift card to make sure you do just that.
Doesn't surprise me in the least that BB would try to get customers to not use their card right now, because they'll still need to use it eventually and that's just more sales for Best Buy in the long run.

Yeah, the idea of a gift card isn't really a bad one. If someone gave me cash, I might be inclined to just spend it on day to day incidentals. When you give someone a gift card, you help insure that they'll be getting a little something for themselves. And that's what gifts are all about.

This isn't as bad as iTunes is (or maybe was, if they've changed the policy) regarding their gift cards. iTunes requires you to register a CC# to open an account and redeem the damn cards.

Maybe the salesperson didn't want the customers to use a gift card as payment because it wouldn't count as a sale (the sale was already made when the gift card was purchased). If a salesperson has a quota to meet or gets some sort of incentive/commission based on sales, it seems like s/he would want to encourage sales, not gift card redemptions.

I'm not saying that it's right -- it just may have been why the salesperson tried to convert a would-be gift card redemption into a credit card sale.

What pisses me off the most about gift cards is when you have something like $.82 to $5 left on it after making a purchase and they won't just give you the cash. No you have to make another purchase for more than what is left and pay your own cash for the rest. I can understand them not wanting to give me the cash back, it forces me to buy even more in order to use the whole card but it still ticks me off. Good customer service would say, hey if there is less than $1 or $5 on the card we'll just give the customer the rest back as cash.

I know I would be much more likely to buy them as presents if that were the policy. Otherwise I typically will give cash and let my giftee spend it wherever they want to.

I like getting gift cards because it removes my buyer's remorse. If I get cash, I'm going to want to buy groceries or pay bills with it. Gift card? I actually get something I want without feeling like I now have to eat Mac & Cheese for a week. But I'm a notorious cheapskate.

The reason stores encourage post-Christmas use of gift cards is they want to reduce their inventory as much as possible before it becomes a taxable item for the following year.

The only Best Buy gift card I ever had was one I bought on the second day of an estate sale. Dozens of people must have seen it in its little case and left it there. I figured what the hell, paid $1.50 for it and found out it had $10 on it. That's a tidy profit, to my way of thinking.

hardcle is right with regards to gift cards being considered a liability.

However, they are also like rebates inasmuch as the companies will make the process as difficult as they can theoretically get away with, causing people to forget about their rebate claims or lose their gift cards. After a certain period of time, those 'absent' gift cards and rebates suddenly and magically turn into profit.

This is on top of the obvious 'now we've tricked them into spending more money here' reason.

When I worked at Future Shop (Canadian Best Buy), they gave us some bs excuse about it and
promised that feature was 'on the way'. Neither Best Buy Canada, US, or Future Shop support this because it's to their benefit to make things more difficult for the customer.

Oh and acambras: Regardless of whether someone pays cash, debit, credit, or gift card as employees that still counts towards our quota and in the case of Future Shop, we still make the same commissions on it. The method of payment is irrelevant. If it didnt count, they'd never sell people gift cards.

I went to my local Shaw's and discovered too late that the damn self-scans won't take gift cards. Seems like a pretty stupid oversight and just dumb business.

Gift cards are just a way of giving someone money with the stipulation that they not spend it on cheap whores and crack rocks.

This is why I always give gift cards as wedding presents.

I use gift vouchers to save for larger purchases I want to make, as I'm horrible at traditional bank-based saving. Recently kitted out our new rental house with an awesome new bed, bookshelves, dining table etc. by buying up a few thousand bucks worth of gift vouchers at Super A-Mart, putting down $500 or so a week until we figured we had enough ready to go. Will probably follow the same route to get ourselves a new TV and DVD player etc.